


With My Own Blood in My Mouth

by This Girl Is (non_sequential)



Category: Captain America, Captain America (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, quite a lot of sap, reunionating, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/non_sequential/pseuds/This%20Girl%20Is
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With My Own Blood in My Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is a bunny breeding ground, y’all. Inspired by this gifset by struckbyloki (http://struckbyloki.tumblr.com/post/33656118030/steve-and-bucky-reunite).
> 
> [ETA: link to gifset on my tumblr: http://this-girl-is.tumblr.com/post/143648378365/cliffordiste-steve-and-bucky-reunite]
> 
> A million thanks to timeofnoreply, who answered my cries for beta help and did a sterling job. 
> 
> Title from ‘Sax Rohmer #1’ by The Mountain Goats.

New York in the fall hasn’t changed all that much. The pollution from the factories is long faded, but millions of cars have picked up the slack. It’s louder then Bucky remembers, mostly traffic noise drowning out the familiar shouts and the less familiar sounds of mobile phones. He tucks his face down into the soft fabric of his scarf, tugs self-consciously at his leather gloves, even though there’s no way anyone can tell by looking that what’s under them is in any way out of the ordinary. He has soaked the bloodstains out of the coat, and patched the bullet holes so you’d hardly notice them.

He shouldn’t be doing this. It’s too soon, he’s too unstable still, twitchy. But he thinks about if their situations were reversed, and how much he’d kick Steve’s ass if he made him wait, hid from him because- because what? He was afraid? No, that’s not it. Well, it is. He knows what he’s been, what he’s done, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to look Steve in the eye with the burden of the last seventy years weighing him down. 

But aside from the shame, he’s reluctant to make Steve deal with the mess that’s in his brain right now — the patchy memories, the screaming nightmares, the flashbacks. But if it were Steve, if he’d spent seventy years thinking Steve was dead, he’d be so mad if Steve hid from him. They’ve seen each other at their worst, and stood by each other through it all. He won’t belittle everything that’s gone before by backing down now. 

He leans against a tree, tall and strong now. It probably wasn’t even here the last time he walked these streets freely. Steve comes to the café behind him most days, pretends not to hate the coffee and loses himself in his sketchpad for a while. He looks tired - worn and pinched in a way that Bucky had hoped he’d never have to see again after the serum. There’s something reassuringly familiar, though, in the way he completely fails to notice the way the pretty waitress smiles at him.

He wonders how Steve got here, or rather, _now_. He doesn’t look any older, but that could be the serum. There’s only one way to find out, really.

Steve comes down the street, right on time. He’s wearing a brown leather jacket a little like the one he used to have, and a terrible, terrible khaki shirt. He watches as Steve sits down at a free table, orders a coffee and sets his sketchpad down. He just stares at it until his coffee arrives, like he’s waiting for it to give him bad news. The waitress tries to get a smile out of him, gives it a real good shot, but she’s no match for Steve’s blues. 

Bucky turns his head, presses his forehead against the trunk of the tree, and takes a deep breath. “Come on, Barnes,” he mutters, and hopes he doesn’t look as crazy as he probably is. “Man up.” He straightens, shoves his hands in his coat pockets, and steps out.

Steve sort of stares at him as he approaches, but in a way that suggests that he’s not really seeing him. He stops a couple of feet away from the table, and it shakes Steve back out of his head, although he doesn’t look a lot more with it. “Bucky?” he asks, like he expects the answer to be ‘No’.

He’d thought he would know what to say when the time came. They were inseparable for twenty years, never had to think twice about what to say to the other, but suddenly he feels awkward and tongue-tied. He shrugs and mutters, “Hi.”

Steve looks around like he thinks it’s a prank, or like he’s trying to find the things out of place that would tell him it was a dream. He’s frowning when he looks back at Bucky. “But you fell.”

He says it like it’s an article of faith, a fundamental of his world. The sky is blue, Steve stands up for what he believes in, Bucky fell. And if one of those things isn’t true, all of the rest could topple like dominoes.

“Yeah.” Bucky slides into the empty seat opposite and snags Steve’s coffee, mostly for something to do with his hands. “You remember Orzano?” Steve nods slowly. “It turns out Zola wasn’t just roughing me up for giggles. He was trying to recreate the serum.”

“So you-“

“Survived a fall I shouldn’t have survived. There was a river at the bottom of the valley. I think I froze somehow but-“

“Suspended animation,” Steve comes out with, like it’s perfectly natural. 

“I guess so.”

“I’m familiar.”

He raises an eyebrow at Steve, who shakes his head. “You first.”

He shrugs. “Some Russians found me.” Steve has added milk to the coffee. Bucky prefers it black, but he drinks it anyway.

Steve has gone stiff and thin-lipped, like he has some idea what’s coming. “And then?”

He can feel his shoulders hunching, even though it’s uncomfortable for his left arm. “Nothing good.”

“Peggy always said they were up to no good,” Steve says, as if that’s answer enough. Maybe it is, who knows? “I missed the whole Cold War thing.” Bucky files that one away.

“I wish I could say the same,” he replies, because God, does he ever.

“Can I have my coffee back?”

“What for?” He asks. “You don’t even like it.” It’s not bad, actually, even with the milk. Which just makes Steve’s dislike of it more puzzling.

“How do you even– You’ve been watching me.”

Bucky slumps in his seat a little, focuses on the coffee. “So how did you get here, looking fresh as a daisy?” he asks because he can’t, he doesn’t _want_ to have this conversation.

“No.”

He looks up and Steve is… focused on him in a way that he wasn’t before. He’s not looking for the trick now. He’s looking at Bucky, and he’s mad.

“You don’t get to just show up seventy years after you _died_ ,” he snarls, “And wave it off with ‘serum and Russians’, Buck. How long have you been here watching me? What _happened_?”

“Just a couple of days, while I worked my nerve up.”

Steve looks like he’s about to protest, so Bucky reaches out and grabs his wrist. A strange look crosses Steve’s face, and when he looks down, Bucky realizes that he’s reached out with his left hand, and he’s holding too hard. 

He makes the fingers loosen their grip, but Steve puts his other hand over the top. There’s no way he doesn’t notice that it doesn’t feel right, even through the leather of the gloves. 

“What happened, Bucky?” Steve asks again, gentler this time. 

He puts the coffee down and rests his hand, his own hand, over Steve’s, takes in the warmth of it. “My arm’s not my arm anymore. It’s bionic, or cybernetic, or whatever they’re calling it this week. I fell. The Russians came. There was brainwashing, and cryogenics, and a whole lot of things in between that I _really_ don’t want to even think about too hard yet, let alone talk about.” 

Beneath his hand, Steve’s is clenching around the metal of his other hand. His jaw is tight like he’s gritting his teeth, the way he does when he’s injured and there’s no painkillers that his body won’t chew up and spit out in minutes.

“You need to understand, everything’s still pretty messed up in here, Steve,” he says, tapping his temple with one finger before returning to the pile of their hands on the table. It’s nice, the comfort of being able to touch someone you’re not trying to kill. “I don’t know what they did in there, but everything’s all turned around, and half the time I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.” 

“I am,” Steve says, earnest as only he can be. “I’m real.”

Bucky squeezes Steve’s hand, pulls back and picks up the coffee, but he’s smiling into it as he says, “Reallest guy I ever knew.”

Steve is starting to look like he really believes this is happening, and it’s kind of breaking Bucky’s heart, that it could take so long to convince him that it isn’t some kind of hideous joke.

The sense of being watched has him glancing around. So stupid — they’re right out in the open here. Anyone could see them, and he’d been so wrapped up in Steve that he hadn’t been paying attention. Then his eyes snag on the waitress, who is looking between he and Steve with a resigned expression. Part of him wants to protest that it’s not like that, but it’s easier to let people see what they want to see, so he just smiles and shrugs apologetically.

She comes over to see if they want anything else, but Steve’s twitchy now; maybe he’s realized how exposed they are, too. He pays for the coffee, tips generously, and all but hauls Bucky off down the street.

“So,” Bucky says as they set off at a quick march, falling into step like they have since they were eight, “No more 10-cent breakfasts.”

Steve makes a face. “I have to think of it like a foreign currency, like Italy or something, where it was 500 lira for a tomato, or I have a heart attack. I still hate buying clothes though. You can’t imagine what they charge for a pair of blue jeans these days.”

Bucky grins, because listening to Steve fretting over the cost of everything is soothingly familiar. “You gonna tell me where we’re going in such a hurry?” 

“Home,” is all the answer he gets. And it would be great, if he was sure where home was, and who would be there. 

“Is ‘home’ likely to have any of your teammates?” Bucky asks. He’s hoping to avoid this conversation, at least for a while, but better now than too late.

Steve cuts him a look. “Yes. Is that likely to be a problem?”

Damn. “I hope not, but you might want to give the Black Widow some advance warning.” He says it lightly, and hopes that Steve won’t put it together.

No such luck. Steve’s face goes grim. “The Russians. Of course.” He pulls out a very snazzy looking cell phone and sends a quick text one-handed. He still hasn’t let go of Bucky’s arm; it’s warm and firm, and feels a little like a tether to reality.

“Look at you, with your modern technology,” he mocks, and it lightens Steve’s expression a little. 

“Texts are easy,” Steve responds. “It’s like sending a telegram. And Twitter’s basically like sending a telegram to the whole world, which is weird, but I get it. Facebook, though — I just don’t get Facebook.” 

He almost points out that it’s an excellent tool for tracking someone down, but that cuts a bit close to the bone, so he just elbows Steve in the side in lieu of an answer. 

Steve drags him into the foyer of Stark Tower with a little wave to the security guard. 

When they get to the private elevator, Bucky whistles. “You’ve come up in the world, boy.”

“Wait’ll you see the view from the roof, it’ll blow your mind.”

He shrugs and doesn’t point out that his mind is already pretty shot and probably doesn’t need an extra push.

“Jarvis,” Steve says, out of nowhere. “Where’s Natasha?”

Bucky jumps as a voice comes out of a speaker. “Agent Romanov is waiting for you in the penthouse lounge, Captain.”

“Thanks.”

The doors open onto a wide open space, with dark marble floors and lots of wood. There’s a sunken area in the middle with couches. In a blur of motion, Natalia goes down on one knee with a gun pointing at them. 

He carefully spreads his arms out, palms wide, no weapons.

“Whoa!” Steve says, “What are you-“

Bucky doesn’t move, just looks her in the eye. “What exactly did you tell her, Steve?”

It’s Natalia who answers. “Bringing a guest home. Explanations needed, please don’t shoot on sight.”

“Helpful, pal.”

Steve has moved to block her shot. “I wasn’t actually expecting it to be quite such an immediate issue.”

She moves to keep him in sight. Steve moves with her. 

“Steve, don’t,” Bucky says. If she hasn’t shot him yet, she isn’t going to unless he makes any sudden moves. He isn’t planning to make any, so it’s better to let her have the line of sight. 

Steve turns his head to give him the ‘I am not impressed’ look he’s been giving Bucky since 1925.

“Don’t,” he says again. Then, to her, “It’s more complicated than we ever realized. I’d like a chance to explain.”

She doesn’t move. “The second to last time I saw you,” she says, “We’d just fucked each other stupid in an empty apartment in Prague.”

He flushes a little, although not as badly as Steve, who goes pink up to the ears.

“I remember,” is all he says. 

“The _last_ time I saw you,” she continues, “You were trying your best to kill me.”

Shit. “That, I don’t remember,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.”

“Yes,” he says, and waits. 

She gestures to the couches with her gun. “Keep your hands where I can see them at all times.”

He moves toward the couches, hands still outspread. Steve falls in behind him, practically vibrating with tension. 

“Easy,” he says calmly. It’s for Steve, but he doesn’t try and prevent Natalia from hearing. “This is going better than I expected, especially since I apparently tried to kill her before.”

“I don’t like this,” Steve mutters as they sit down. The couches are low and soft, but firm enough to get out of in a hurry if necessary.

“Your teammate is pointing a gun at us. Of course you don’t like it, you dope,” he says. “But it’s going to be fine.”

“You seem very sure,” Natalia says as she sits gracefully opposite them. The gun doesn’t waver. 

“More like cautiously optimistic,” he replies.

“Hmm. Tell me about complications.”

Bucky rests his hands on his knees and sits back against the cushions. It leaves him uncomfortably open, but that’s the point. Even with all the gaps, he knows who and what he has been, and he has entered her home. He’ll do whatever he needs to put her at ease.

“Did they ever tell you anything about where I came from?” he asks. 

“It didn’t come up.”

“I’ve got some vague memories of being a child in a village outside Leningrad. I remember my mother singing Russian folk songs to get me to sleep at night.”

Steve makes a noise of protest, but doesn’t actually say anything. Natalia raises an eyebrow.

“It’s a lie,” Bucky says.

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I remember the truth,” he says, tilting his head toward Steve. “And so does he.”

She rests the gun on her knee. It’s still pointing at him, and he has no illusions that she couldn’t put two bullets in his brain before he could make a move, but it’s an indication that she’s prepared to hear him out, might even consider believing him. 

“The Red Room are not keen on people remembering truths.”

“No,” he agrees. “They didn’t like it at all.”

She purses her lips. He sort of hadn’t wanted to say this in front of Steve, because he’ll never hear the end of it, but he won’t get anywhere until Natalia knows what happened — knows and believes it. 

He cuts a look at Steve and says, “I don’t want to hear about this later.”

Steve’s eyebrows go up, and his mouth quirks, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“Steve.”

“All right,” Steve says. He’s probably got his fingers crossed out of sight, the little punk. But it’ll have to do for now. 

He turns back to Natalia, who is watching with interest. 

“A few weeks ago, they popped me out of the freezer, stuck a gun in my hand and gave me a mission.” He can feel Steve’s eyes on him, and the weight of expectation from Natalia. “They wanted me to kill Captain America.” Steve makes a noise in the back of his throat. “The conversation did not go the way they expected.”

He can see Natalia putting something together in her head. “The Pustozyorsk complex,” she says. “That was… a thorough job.”

“Turns out some things go deeper than they can reach,” he says. Steve is going to be giving him hell forever for being a sap, he just knows it. “I’ve been looking out for Steve since I was seven. I nursed him through the measles, rheumatic fever, and three bouts of pneumonia, and patched him up after a thousand stupid fights with people who were twice his size. I’m not wasting all that effort.”

He can _feel_ Steve next to him, just bursting with the urge to start with the ribbing. “Not a word, Rogers.”

“Captain?” Natalia says, and Steve seems to get what she’s asking. 

“He forgot about the asthma and the weak heart, and he’s not mentioning all the times he sat with me when I was sick in the orphanage, or all the times he had my back in the war, but that’s about right.”

“And you’re sure this is the same man? It’s been a long time,” she says, and while Bucky can see that she’s playing devil’s advocate, Steve apparently can’t.

“It’s been fourteen months,” Steve all but snarls. “And I spent twenty years looking at his face. We were short of mirrors - I know it better than I know my own.”

Bucky’s sort of warmed by that idea, but he’s not prepared to get any more sappy about this than they already have. “Not to mention you’ve only had that face for about three years.”

Steve looks startled, and a little hurt. “It’s still my face,” he says. 

“Well, sure,” Bucky replies. “It just, you know, fits a little better now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve demands, sounding offended. 

“Nothing!” he says, as earnestly as he can, because it will wind Steve up more. “Just that it’s sort of squarer now, and your nose looks a bit less…”

“A bit less what?” 

“You know,” he drags it out a little more. 

“Enlighten me.”

“Well,” he says, and pauses for the punchline. “Beaky.”

Someone else walks in while Steve is gaping at Bucky in outrage. Bucky jumps a little, but keeps his hands where they are. No sudden movements.

“Oh hey,” the newcomer says. “New guy, who is making Cap speechless. Excellent.” Then his demeanor changes. “New guy who is at gunpoint. Nat?”

Natalia likes this guy, trusts him. Most people might not see it, not at first glance, but it’s immediately clear to him. 

“The Winter Soldier followed Steve home, and Steve wants to keep him.”

He holds himself still as a throwing knife suddenly appears in the guy’s hand. Steve leaps to his feet, which immediately makes both Natalia and her pal jumpy. 

“Steve.” Steve stops, but his body is tense. “Steve, sit down.” The clench of his fists is the only sign that he’s heard. “Steve.” Bucky says it gently. “C’mon pal, you’re making me look bad, here.”

Steve sits, slowly, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the knife. 

“The Winter Soldier?” the new guy asks. “Fucking seriously?”

He beats Natalia to the response. “In a manner of speaking. I also go by James Barnes, when I’m not being brainwashed by covert Russian government divisions.”

“Barnes,” the guy says. “Bucky Barnes.” The tone is disbelieving. “Bullshit. No. Just. Bull _shit_. I know shit gets weird around here on a regular basis, but that is just. No.”

Steve says, “Clint-“

“No!” Clint nearly yells, all but flailing the arm that isn’t holding the knife. That one doesn’t move an inch. “This is pushing my ability to suspend disbelief to the limit, Cap!”

Steve doesn’t seem to think this is the barrier Bucky is seeing. “Jarvis,” he says calmly.

The voice from the elevator responds, still from speakers somewhere in the room. “Captain?”

“Can you please show an image search for the Howling Commandos?”

The voice replies, “Certainly, sir,” even as a square of light emanates from the coffee table in the centre of the room. 

It’s covered in small tiles of color, which he soon realizes are pictures. Almost all are of the Howling Commandos. He’s seeing them reversed, but Bucky can make out formal group shots, and candid ones, and memories stir in the back of his brain. He can see Dum Dum presiding over a card game, and the blur of Jim Morita’s hand as he waves it in protest, and for a second he can smell cigarettes, and cheap booze, and the polish they all used on their boots back then; he can hear the laughter, and the catcalls, and the background hum of conversation in the pub around them.

“Top row, second from right, please, Jarvis,” Steve says, his voice overlaying the scene, and shaking Bucky loose. Natalia is watching him closely.

One of the images takes over the whole square of light. It has all the hallmarks of a formal group shot: the careful configuration of the team around a truck, everyone looking clean and scrubbed. But Monty is trying to get his hat back from Jones, while Jacques sneaks a quick cig. Steve, front and centre, has his head turned, trying to get them all to settle down. Next to him sits Bucky, leaning on his rifle, and laughing at them all.

“Didn’t Peggy take that?” he asks Steve, because he thinks he remembers it, but he’s not entirely sure. 

Steve smiles a little. “Yeah,” he says. It’s soft, like he’s still treading softly around something that hurts. 

Clint looks at the picture, at Bucky, at Natalia. “Jesus Christ,” he says, as he tucks the knife away. “I need a drink.” He wanders over to the frankly impressive wet bar along one wall. “My faith in reality is shaken!” he calls over his shoulder.

“You and me both, pal,” Bucky replies.

Clint jumps up and sits on the bar with his drink in his left hand. His right hand is free, and he has a clear line of sight on Bucky. Not quite as relaxed as he’s playing it, but Bucky appreciates the effort.

“Agent Romanov,” the voice of Jarvis says, though Bucky still hasn’t seen any sign of the guy.

“Took them long enough,” Natalia says.

“Natasha?” Steve leaps to his feet, as half a dozen suit-clad, gun-wielding government agents fan out around them, that wounded expression on his face.

Natalia is looking at Bucky, though. He still hasn’t moved. 

“We need to take you into custody,” she says. “Get you checked out, make sure there are no surprises.”

“Natasha!” Steve says, and he’s angry now, because he doesn’t get it. Hasn’t seen the tilt of her head that says she’s being gentle, in her way. 

“They can do that?” he asks, and God, he hopes they can, badly wants to be _sure_.

“Yes,” she says, her voice soft and serious. 

Bucky nods, and reaches out, slowly, to grab Steve’s arm. He says, for what feels like the millionth time this afternoon, “Steve.” He doesn’t resent it, though. Steve has his back, and he feels more grounded than he has since his handlers shoved a weapon in his hand and a photo of Steve under his nose and told him to kill Captain America, and everything went up in flames around him. 

“They’re treating you like a criminal!” Steve protests. 

Bucky raises his eyebrows at him to suggest he think about the words he just said. He knows he’s been vague, but Steve’s not stupid; he must have some idea. “They want to check that we’re not being played, Steve. I mean, it doesn’t feel like a mission, like a con, but wouldn’t you like to be sure?”

“I am sure,” Steve says, and he’s got his jaw set in the way that means he’s digging his heels in, and there’ll be no moving him at all unless Bucky can head him off.

“Well, OK,” he replies, giving it his best shot, “but you also thought that going in behind enemy lines and single-handedly assaulting a major enemy stronghold was a good idea, so you’ll forgive me for my lack of faith in your self-preservation instincts.”

Steve’s eyes go a little distant for a second, and then he says, “Says you,” and pokes Bucky’s left arm.

“Burn!” Clint declares from his position perched on top of the bar. He isn’t one of the people with a weapon aimed at him. Neither is Natalia anymore, and Bucky finds himself surprisingly grateful for it. 

“Pipe down in the peanut gallery!” he shouts back before turning his attention back to Steve. “All right, that’s fair,” he acknowledges, because he really doesn’t have a leg to stand on. “But I’ve got preserving you down to a fine art, and I’d really fucking hate to be wrong now.”

Steve scowls, and Bucky knows he’s won. “I’m coming with you,” he says belligerently, like he thinks Bucky’s going to argue. Idiot.

“Fine with me,” he says. He raises his voice to address the crowd of suits who haven’t taken their eyes, or their guns, off him since they arrived. “That all right with you boys?”

“Yes,” Natalia replies before the suits get to express an opinion. “That is acceptable.”

His instincts are screaming at him. He isn’t unarmed. Natalia and Clint would be problems, but the suited agents would be easy enough, he could be out and away, free to go home within ten minutes. He should not, under any circumstances allow himself to be captured, let alone _turn himself over_.

He takes a deep breath and fights the instincts down. They aren’t, strictly speaking, _his_ instincts, and he’s already closer to ‘home’ than he’s been in seventy years. He is clenching and unclenching his toes. Clenching his fists might be taken amiss. 

A hand comes down on his shoulder from behind, because Steve really is an idiot sometimes, and he jumps a little but just manages not to flip him over his shoulder out of sheer reflex. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Steve murmurs in his ear, God love the dumb punk. He doesn’t need any more proof that the urge to run comes from someone else. Home has always been wherever Steve was. There’s nowhere else to run to. No — there’s no need to run anywhere.

“Yeah, I do,” he says back quietly, ignoring everyone else in the room. Natalia’s probably sending out silent signals, because the suits just wait, and Clint doesn’t shoot off his mouth. “I need to get them out of my head, Steve. Do you really want me to lay out the worst case scenario? Where this is all a trick on both of us, and a few nights from now they take my head back over, I stick a couple bullets in your head while you’re sleeping, take out anyone else I happen to pass on the way out, and head back to Russia, patting myself on the back for a job well done.”

There’s a tense silence from Steve. He’s gotten the point. 

“And unless you’ve become a shrink while my back was turned…” Bucky turns his head a little and catches a sheepish almost-smile on Steve’s face. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. So SHIELD is my best shot at this. I know you won’t let them disappear me.” He risks a glance at Natalia, who remains as stern-faced as ever. “Natalia might even help you out.”

“No one will disappear,” Natalia states. It’s difficult to be entirely sure whether she’s being patronizing or reassuring. Either way, it’s kind of comforting. 

SHIELD HQ — he is, in a sense, walking into the lion’s den. Not unarmed. Never that, not anymore, but without weapons, and without any real defenses.

He breathes in, slow and deep, like the moment before taking the shot, and breathes it out as he steps forward, slowly so as not to alarm the armed goons. Natalia falls in at his left, Steve on his six, solid and reliable and forever like mountains. A moment later Clint appears to his right, with a cheerful, “Fury’s gonna have kittens. I can’t miss this.” 

He hasn’t given a CO conniptions in a long time. Maybe this won’t be so bad.


End file.
